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Thursday, 23 March 2017

The ugly divisive fiction of the extreme-right opportunists

The terrorist who attacked Westminster has now been confirmed as British-born, yet before his origins were revealed the extreme-right were absolutely desperate to use the attack to fuel their divisive anti-immigration, and to misleadingly portray London as a weak, scared and divided city.

The UKIP and Leave.EU bankroller Arron Banks was one of the first to use the attack as an excuse to promote his fanatical and divisive anti-immigration rhetoric. Long before the (British) origins of the attacker were known, Banks started blabbering on about immigration and borders, Retweeting extreme-right comments, and slinging abuse at people who dared contradict his divisive rhetoric.

Nigel Farage was another extreme-right politician to see the carnage as a golden opportunity to spread divisive anti-immigrant nonsense. Instead of waiting for information about who the attacker was, he charged onto Fox News to opportunistically weave the Westminster attack into his personal anti-immigration narrative.

It's not just anti-immigrant sentiments that extreme-right used this attack to promote. They also wanted to instil fear. The woman who will not be named on this blog also scuttled off to Fox News to tell the Americans that in London "people are cowed, people are afraid, people are not united".

The woman who will not be named was obviously lying through her teeth because the vast majority of Londoners are not cowed into submission, they're getting on with their lives and refusing to let the terrorists win. London survived the Blitz; London survived loads of IRA attacks in the 70s, 80s, and 90s; London survived the appalling 7/7 bombings; and London will survive this.

The extreme-right want to portray London as a weak city that is quivering with fear because it helps to sell their fanatical fearmongering agenda to the lucrative American audience, but the reality is totally different.

The real stories are the remarkable displays of bravery in the immediate aftermath of the attack, and the stoic solidarity of Londoners on the day after it.

The extreme-right elements who misleadingly portray London as weak, scared and divided are shameful opportunists who know that their ugly divisive fiction is more marketable to the right-wing news channels in the US than the reality; the stoicism and resilience of London.

The extreme-right don't care about waiting for the facts before they start spouting off.

The extreme-right don't care about the reality that most Londoners are determined to get on with their lives rather than wallowing in fear or self-pity.

The extreme-right are absolutely desperate to use anything they can to spread their agenda of fear and division.

The grand irony of course is that by behaving like this they're doing the work of the Islamist fanatics. The Islamist terrorists want to make us live in abject fear of their attacks. The Islamist terrorists want to create divisions and even more anti-Muslim prejudice in the West.

The extreme-right love to see themselves as defenders of our culture, but by deliberately spreading fear, hatred, and division they're actually reacting in precisely the way the Islamist fanatics want them to.

In fact the extreme-right and the Islamist fanatics both share the same vision. They both crave a violent and destructive clash of civilisations. They're the opposite sides of the same disgusting coin. The Islamist fanatic in ISIS occupied Syria who joyously celebrates the attack on London is no different to the extreme-right fanatic in Britain who is full of glee because they see the attack as another wonderful opportunity to spread their divisive and dishonest hate-fuelled rhetoric.

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